he's a great man.
salt of the earth type, started out as a union carpenter in northeast new jersey. his work is still up in the rafters of brendan byrne arena, a few other stadiums, bridges, and just about every hospital in the area.
great sense of humor, likes his beer and his animals and astronomy. moved out to the rural NW corner of new jersey around the time i was born and put an addition onto the house upstairs so my brother and i had a huge room to share as kids. eventually put an addition on the front of the house as well and then even built a new bedroom in the basement once my brother and i decided we were too old and too cool to be sharing a room anymore.
even put up an above ground pool for us and had a huge garden behind it every year. later in life i found out that he always tried to grow pot back there, but the corn would turn yellow at about the time the pot plants were big and green and budding, so kept on having to cut them down.
he went from doing high end interior renovation work on old, old estate houses in NJ to less sophisticated carpentry after we moved out to cookie-cutterville, AZ. got his contractor license without ever having to study a single book and now gets to pick and choose what work he wants to do, if any. sometimes he'll take a few weeks off in the heat of summer just because he can, or to help me and my brother in whatever we happen to be doing.
every year for christmas he puts a new tool in my carpentry arsenal and we go out to the garage for a tutorial on how to use it. then a bonfire later that night in the backyard, but only after we've looked at the rings of saturn or whatever other interesting thing is out in the sky that night.
he treats my mom like royalty, still happily married after almost 40 years together, and never even heard him raise his voice to her in all that time. recently he learned to cook and cook well and has dinner waiting for my mom every day when she gets home from work, a habit i'm slowly adopting over here.
answers and ends phone calls with "aloha" ever since he and my mom visited hawaii for the first time for their 30th anniversary.
except for the fact that mom wants to downsize and move into a new house (meaning he has to move his garage workspace), he is a completely contented man.
and he would call you a piece of shit like you a nigger.
